POST 6

A
review of notes to eternity in University of Otago's Critic
Magazine [Critic Issue 13, 2016] - during the recent limited theatrical release in New
Zealand - gave the film an ‘A’ rating and while it's gratifying to get critical affirmation, the
reviewer made this statement which demands response:

“…
It [the film] tackles all of the difficult issues headfirst, with the thesis
that the Holocaust is now being repeated against Palestinian civilians …”

The
film in fact does not present nor set out to present such a thesis: a literal equivalence
between the Nazi Holocaust and the treatment of the Palestinians. Nor is this something the four characters in the film articulate.

Undoubtedly,
visual parallels can be drawn from the containment mechanisms used by the
Israeli occupation: the Wall, the electrified fences, the ubiquitous watch
towers, checkpoints and barriers, and the corralling of the Palestinian
population into designated areas, regulated by forms of identification, subject
to random arrest and incarceration. There are also parallels to be found in what José
Saramago once called “the spirit of the occupation”, manifest in the
institutionalized dehumanization of a people.

These
are things Sara Roy, a child of Holocaust
survivors, once spoke about as she walked along part of the wall Israel has constructed in
the West Bank [this scene is not in the final cut]:

“I
can’t begin to tell you how painful and upsetting this is to me. These walls,
the barbed wire… What would my mother say if she saw this, yet again? I mean
the Holocaust imagery is very powerful, at least for me, the watchtowers and
the barbed wire and the sense of containment and violence… I can’t help but
wonder is this why my grandparents and my aunts and uncles and all the many
people in my family and so many millions of Jews were murdered. Absolutely
not. In fact their deaths are often used to justify and legitimise Israeli
occupation and the oppression of Palestinians and that is something I have
fought my entire academic life against and many Jews, an increasing number of
Jews also because they recognize that it is not only an obscenity, it is so
damaging to us as a people.”

She
continued:

“ …
the Holocaust imagery in the West Bank is extraordinary, and for me as a child
of survivors I look at it and that is what immediately comes to mind. You know,
the parallels exist, the parallels exist in the sense that the dehumanisation,
the denigration of the ‘Other’ is I think very, very similar…. Of course there
are great distinctions in terms of scale, in terms of intent. I mean many
people would disagree with me and say that the Israelis are bent on the
genocide of the Palestinians. I don’t believe that.”

There
is no doubt the Holocaust is an historical and cultural cairn that towers over
this conflict. It looms large in the collective
and individual psyche. notes to eternity references some of this influence,
directly and indirectly, through the stories and reflections of the film’s characters.
These threads are too numerous and complex to go into here, and they by no means constitute the sole focus of the film.

It
is nevertheless worthwhile to contemplate the question Sara Roy relates
near the start of the film, and which she has heard time and again, referencing the treatment of the Palestinians:
“How can the children of the Holocaust do such things?” It's
a framework for discussion that doesn’t require or imply literal equivalence.